


tequila on a spaceship

by faerie_ground



Series: the tequila series [2]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Other, Reincarnation, basically a reincarnation + space au set in the future, or uh somewhat happy lol, slight breaking of the third wall, star trek elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29377953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerie_ground/pseuds/faerie_ground
Summary: In 2014, Charles Xavier gets brutally murdered and Erik Lehnsherr spends the rest of his life mourning his death.In 3014, Captain Lehnsherr and CMO Dr Xavier are colleagues, best friends and maybe a little more besides that aboard the Magneto I.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: the tequila series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2158035
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	tequila on a spaceship

**Author's Note:**

> i actually wasn't going to write this because i felt like i had ended tequila on a beach perfectly where it ought to end. however i had also been planning a reincarnation au set in space for the longest time and syd (while crying) convinced me to write this into a fix-it sequel for tequila on a beach. so here yall go lmao here's a sequel thats basically a reincarnation + space + modern au combined into one. i probably need to see about getting a therapist at some point
> 
> tw for description of graphic violence, asphyxiation and a strangulation scene, panic attacks and dissociation, ptsd mention

1.

The Xavier family hall of the deceased- because of course they’re weird enough to have a cemetery- is full of rows upon rows of holograms. Charles is four and gets bored of his father crying over his mother’s hologram, so he toddles over to the other rows. Unfamiliar names, all of them- Charles is young, and he doesn’t understand death. He doesn’t even know who his mother is, who’d died at childbirth and left him with a father still at a loss when it came to bringing up a kid. 

He gets to the end of the row, and stares. Here, there are no more holograms, just a bunch of portraits. There’s one in particular- a man, beaming at the camera, bright blue eyes and wide dimples. 

_ “Charles!  _ There you are- honestly, what has gotten into you!” Daddy scoops him up and bestows a flurry of kisses onto his cheeks. “Don’t run off like that, please, I couldn’t even find you!”

Charles stays still, staring at the portrait. His father notices his gaze and laughs hoarsely. “Remind me to tell you about that story sometime,” he says, hefting Charles up in his arms and kissing the side of his face. “You were named after him, you know, because Lila found the story so utterly fascinating. Me, I thought it was a goddamn tragedy.”

As his father carries him out, Charles keeps his eyes on the portrait of the strange, happy man with the almost luminous blue eyes. He almost seems to be telling a secret. 

But that’s ridiculous, four year old Charles Xavier the Second thinks. Portraits don’t talk, especially not portraits in the hall of the dead.

2.

The planet they’ve been asked to make contact with is full of aliens who are omniscient, apparently- they see all and know all. The different universes, the different worlds, what each string of fate results in. Personally, Erik thinks it’s a load of bullshit. 

“It’s not bullshit,” Dr Charles Xavier- “the  _ second!”  _ he tells everyone who bothers to listen. “I’m the cheap copy!” - says, nursing a shot glass of tequila in the minibar in  _ Magneto I.  _ “They’re the real deal, they apparently know everything about the universe itself and maybe even beyond. It’s why there’s so few of them on the planet itself, because most of them don’t even survive beyond childhood. It must be heavy to have all that knowledge in one head.”

“That’s impossible,” Erik argues. “One alien can’t know everything about existence itself.”

“You definitely know nothing about it,” Dr Xavier cackles, knocking back his shot glass and dodging Erik’s kick in one go. “So Captain, tonight- your quarters or mine?” 

“Mine, just for that,” Erik says, trying to quell the slight hint of pleasure that threatens to rise at the sight of Charles calling him captain. 

They reach the planet Krakoa the next day, Erik requesting for the ship’s chief medical officer as part of his landing party and grinning when Charles stomps over to the transportation platform, a scowl set over his face while he shoves his doctor’s gloves into his pockets. “Tell me,” he snaps as they wait to be transported down to the planet, Erik’s communication officer, Lieutenant Braddock hiding a grin into the back of her hand. “Was it necessary for me to come? You know how I hate these things. You know how I hate space.”

Charles has had a mystifying hatred for space ever since the day Erik met him. The man was genial enough, except when it actually came to matters of the galaxy. It made even less sense considering he had been training to be a medical officer for a fleet of spaceships when Erik had first met him. “I hate space,” he had volunteered, apropos of nothing. “But I needed to escape even more.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard it all before,” Erik says airily, waving a hand and grinning widely while the good doctor fumes. “Come on, Xavier, it might be fun. Where did your sense of adventure go?”

“In the trash collector after you refused to suck me off this morning,” Charles says, and ignoring Erik’s glare, gives a nod to Lieutenant Braddock who’s shaking her head, still grinning. “Morning, Betsy. How do you do?”

“Very well, thank you,” Braddock says as they’re transported down to the planet, the party from the planet waiting for them. There’s a slight, suppressed smirk on her lips because she knows that actually acknowledging Charles’s caustic remark might get Erik to throw her in the brig. It’s not like Erik hasn’t done it before. Let it never be said he was an easygoing captain. “Shall we?”

Charles looks up, his eyes rapidly taking everything in. The collar of his lab coat is turned up, hiding his neck from view like it always does. He looks apprehensive, all of a sudden, like he’s expecting something to happen. Then again, that’s always been Charles, since the day Erik met him outside the block of the cadet dorms- always waiting for the other shoe to drop. “We shall,” he says, stepping forward.

3.

Charles Xavier the Second hates space. 

It’s dangerous. It’s darkness and uncertainty and lurking horrors, and the idea of it is absolutely unnatural and frankly weird. 

“Why do you love space?” the space admiral asks in front of him. She has her hair pinned in place, a severe look in her eyes. Probably because Charles’ hatred of space is wafting off him in waves. 

What the hell does he even say? Charles isn’t here out of some unending passion for twinkling galaxies and celestial bodies. He just loves biology and anatomy and genetics, fixing things up and healing them three times over. He loves the unknown, because space may be dark and dangerous but the possibility of knowledge, the possibility of unexplored territory is still enthralling. And most of all, Charles thinks, he loves the possibility of escape from his forever negligent and absent father, from the dreams that haunt his footsteps, from his fears and anxiety and phobias, the whole cluster of them that requires Charles to go for mandated therapy sessions. 

Charles sighs, and opts for nepotism instead. “I’m the son of Admiral Haller,” he says, and watches with a slight bit of guilt as the space admiral in front of him automatically brightens up.

4.

They first meet outside a frat party in the dorms of the Galactic Fleet Academy.

Erik abhors parties. He abhors them even more when there’s the stench of drugs, sex, booze. He’s fixing up his bike, ready to leave when he hears retching. This causes him to look up, only to see a man, bent over and vomiting out beer onto the curb. Really, Erik thinks with no small amount of disgust.

The man straightens up, and Erik blinks, his brain grinding to a halt. The buttons on the man’s shirt strain in vain against his chest as he valiantly attempts to straighten it, his cheeks flushed with alcohol and mouth so red that Erik’s own mouth waters. It’s been a long time since he’s been this taken aback by how gorgeous someone had looked with- yes, with vomit over their chin. 

“Hello,” he says. “Nice bike.” He wipes at his chin, and grins.

“Thanks,” Erik says, and pauses. He  _ knows  _ this man. He feels like he knows him. The man’s accent is strange- polished and yet not completely British. He’s got eerily blue eyes that gleam bright in the dark, rather like a cat’s eyes. 

He’s dressed well too- a blue button-down, dark washed jeans, laced up boots and- Erik blinks. That’s a black ribbon on his neck, hastily but tightly tied. It’s thick enough to cover almost the entire expanse of his neck, leaving about a sliver of skin above his collarbone and below the underside of his chin.

“I feel like I know you, like a familiar stranger,” the man says. He notices Erik’s gaze and grins even brighter. “I’m setting a fashion statement. Think I’ll get it trending?”

“No, it looks ridiculous on you,” Erik says flatly. He pauses, and adds, not entirely sure why he’s about to say what he’s about to say, “Wanna go for a ride with me?”

“God, yeah,” the man exclaims, and Erik gets a wave of déjà vu so strong his knees nearly buckle. 

He ends up riding with the man all across Chicago city, the man resting against his back with his cheek flat between his shoulder blades. They travel across the city for three rounds before ending up at the beach. He learns that the man’s name is Charles Xavier (“the  _ second!” _ ) that he’s in his first year of training to be a medical officer for one of the ships of the inter-planetary fleet, that the mating habits of sloths are absolutely fascinating, that the head of the medical department at the Academy is an asshole.

They lie down on the sand in front of the crashing waves, Charles’ head pillowed on his shoulder. He’s smoking a joint, and his ribbon is still somehow fixed on his throat. Erik has already discarded his leather jacket on the sand beside them, along with his shirt. The second he’d taken it off Charles had traced his tattoo with a curious look, to which he’d shrugged. The tattoo’s of the ship his parents had crashed in, the  _ Serenity II.  _ He was hardly going to offer up his sob story to someone he’d just met, though- no matter how beautiful said someone was.

“You should fuck me,” Charles offers, smoking the joint. It’s seven am in the morning. Erik feels like he’s in the twilight zone.

“Maybe in the evening,” Erik says, and gives his chin a look. It’s clean now, but the stench of vomit isn’t something Erik’s gonna forget. “When you’re clean.”

“Fine,” Charles says, and chucks his joint on the sand. “I’ll be the best fuck you’d ever had, Lehnsherr.”

He’s right. Charles ties his arms to the headboard and rides him into the mattress in the evening, and while Erik’s still recovering says, “I’m not looking for anything right now,” as the damn ribbon stays on his neck. Erik agrees, so the both of them stay fuckbuddies, and then become best friends. A year into becoming the Captain of the  _ Magneto I,  _ Erik exits the Chief Medical Officer’s quarters at three am in the morning and realises he’s, as Charles would say, arse over tit in love.

“Fuck,” he tells the wall. The wall stares back.

5.

“Oh, they’re together alright,” Engineering Officer Jean Grey scoffs, sitting back and knocking down her glass of vodka and rum. “They’ve been together since they met at that damn frat party. It’s ridiculous- you could never catch one without the other, but they’re  _ always  _ arguing. Like cats and dogs.”

“Well,” she continues, now twirling a lock of auburn hair around her finger, leaning forward, “Lehnsherr graduated valedictorian of his class, right? He’s a big hotshot in the fleet, because people eat that shit right up- sad backstory, stellar grades, excellent on the field. People say the fleet fast-tracked him and so he gets his ship in, like, his  _ second  _ year of being a first officer to Captain Monroe. And  _ then _ he requests for his First Officer to be Xavier, who’d been in his final year of training. Of course Xavier turns him down, because everyone knows that man hates space- the lord knows why, since he’s literally a space cadet. Lehnsherr flies down just for the two of them to scream the whole cadet dorms down. Seriously, you could hear it from a mile away- I was in class, thank god. Can you imagine?”

She leans back, folding her arms across her chest. “How did it end? Well, you tell me. Xavier’s his chief medical officer. Rumours fly, and everyone’s saying they’re fucking. Well, good for them.” She sobers up, deep in thought. “We all need someone like that in our lives.” 

6.

The aliens are tall, with long black robes for clothes, angular noses and eerie, purple eyes.

Charles shifts uncomfortably as Braddock steps forward, communicating in the series of clicks that make up their language. He refuses the urge to peek over at Erik, who is of course standing ramrod straight and tall, perfectly confident as he is in these situations. Why had Erik forced him to come down? He was such an asshole sometimes.

The head alien talks back in the same series of clicks, before zoning in on him. Charles bows his head, feeling deeply awkward now. 

The alien blinks at him, and then suddenly speaks in the Queen’s English, grammatically perfect. “Oh, my sweet child,” they say, eyes deeply sorrowful. “So much you have yet to learn.”

Charles blinks. “Thanks,” he says, and feels Erik visibly wilt beside him. 

“You’ll know everything,” the alien says. “In this life, and in the previous one, my child.” And they’re stretching out a hand, touching Charles’ forehead- and Charles is falling, barely registering Erik’s scream, falling, falling-

_ He’s running across the woods. The branches are ripping at him, tearing at the skin of his arms and waist and god, he’s terrified, he’s so terrified. His heart is about to rip its way out of his chest. _

_ “Erik,” he’s sobbing. He keeps trying Erik’s phone but of course he’s kept it on silent. Of all the times to keep it silent, god, god- _

_ A body slams into him. Charles is thrown onto his back and then the man- Shaw- has his hands around Charles’ neck, squeezing the life out of him, and Charles is trying to shove him off but he can’t, his nails are scrabbling at the skin for support but- but-  _

_ “No,” Charles thinks he wheezes. “No, Erik, Erik, Erik-” he can’t leave Erik. He’s going to marry Erik. He can’t leave Erik, beautiful Erik who’d looked at him on a beach and kissed him, who argues with him and loves him in equal measure, whose finger on which he wants to slide a ring on, he can’t leave _

_ can’t _

_ leave _

7.

Erik finds out about Charles’ most severe phobia on a fine Sunday morning. He’s just woken up and Charles’ throat is covered yet again- some days it’s a black ribbon, other days it’s a choker, and yet on others it’s a lace trinket. It’s always covered up, however, and Erik’s dying to get his mouth on the skin beneath. God knows Charles left enough of his own hickeys on Erik’s throat. He noses down Charles’ jaw, hearing him hum, and gets his fingers on the ribbon- a blue one, today.

The reaction is almost automatic. Charles kicks at his ribs so hard he’s falling on his ass on the ground, his tailbone definitely bruised. For a second Erik sits there, dumbfounded and completely winded, body robbed of breath. Then he sits up on his haunches, scowling. “What the fuck, Charles!” he snaps, rubbing at his ribs. “Are you fucking  _ insane?” _

Charles doesn’t answer. He looks up, finally, and then freezes.

Charles is completely white, hand clamped over his neck and on top of the ribbon as he trembles on the bed. He’s shaking, minute quakes racketing his whole frame as he sits on the bed, legs folded under himself. There’s sweat beading on his forehead, at the side of his neck and his eyes look suspiciously bright, as if he’s about to break down any second. He looks- terrified.

Of  _ Erik.  _ Erik, who’d rather cut off his own arm than hurt Charles. “Charles,” he says carefully, raising both arms. “Here- see? I’m not hurting you.”

Charles doesn’t say anything. His eyes are distant, somewhere where Erik can’t reach him. And Erik knows, with horrific certainty, that he’s about to lose him. 

_ “Charles,”  _ Erik says desperately. “You’re terrifying me, come on, look at me-” he climbs on the bed, tugs Charles close and embraces him tight, making sure their hearts lay against each other. “Breathe with me. Come on, you asshole, breathe,  _ breathe!” _

It’s slow going but slowly the colour seeps back in, slowly his breathing increases from the shallow gasps they had been at. It’s close to evening, Erik’s stomach growling from the lack of food all day when Charles finally stirs and murmurs, “I’m sorry for kicking you.”

“Don’t apologise,” Erik says instantly, swallowing. He’d taken the compulsory medical module just like the rest of them. He knows what a knee-jerk response to trauma looks like. “Are you- were you- did you get-”

The resulting pause goes on for far too long. “No,” Charles says, finally, haltingly. “No, I- I don’t know. I don’t know why I- I just can’t stand anyone touching my throat. Never have. It’s why I keep wearing things to block the sight of my neck off.” 

They’re both turned on their sides, facing each other. Charles still looks ashen from the panic, his face waxy and pale. Slowly, swallowing repetitively as if he’s still on the edge of that panic, he takes Erik’s hand in his own and brings it to his throat, leaning into the hold and closing his eyes. Erik stays still, heart rabbiting at the pace of a thousand miles per second. He feels as if a wrong move might catapult them both over the edge of a precipice they’re standing on.

Moving his fingers at a glacial pace that Charles can be sure to stop at any time, Erik tugs the ribbon down. What lies beneath is smooth and unblemished. Erik blinks, staring at the expanse of pale skin. He doesn’t know why he’d expected to see a ring of black contusions. 

“It got so bad once that I had to see a therapist,” Charles says, eyes still closed. “Tony says I have issues.”

“Rich of Tony,” Erik says. “His issues have issues.” Charles snorts, and then leans even more into Erik’s hand, face growing slack with comfort. 

That night, Erik has unsettling dreams. He keeps running through a forest, looking for Charles, but he can’t ever find him. His face is lined with sweat, streaked with tears, his throat hoarse with calling Charles’ name. In his hand is his phone, where he’s tried calling Charles at least five dozen times. None of the calls had gone through. He’s desperate, and terrified, and so frantic that he might retch trom the feeling. 

He can’t lose Charles. He won’t lose Charles. He’d die before losing Charles. 

“Charles!” he calls out, branches whipping him across the face, a few cutting his forearms.  _ “Charles!” _

Charles never appears.

8.

Charles always introduces himself the same way. “Charles Xavier the second, because I’m the copy!” he laughs, pen behind his ear and stethoscope around his neck. Tony’s been his friend for years and he always hears the same fucking introduction.

“You always say that,” he asks Charles once, out of curiosity. They’re all in the common room of the dorms, Steve and Bruce on their fronts watching the telly and Erik with his head pillowed on Charles’ lap, staring at nothing in particular. At Tony’s query, all three of them snap to attention like little soldiers. “Charles the second. Why is that?” 

Charles stares at him, then shrugs. “I’m named after my ancestor. Charles Xavier the first.”

“Wait, what?” Erik’s sitting up, staring at Charles with keen interest. “I never knew that.”

“Yeah, let me- here, Tony, pass me the data pad.” Tony does, watching curiously as Charles mutters to himself, swiping through the pad until settling on a page. It’s an old newspaper headline- they’ve long gone out of business now, but there are thousands of them saved on the intraweb for posterity.  _ Missing Xavier Heir Found Strangled To Death In Town Of Oxford. _

The picture is of a body covered in a black sheet, a man hunched over it. It’s still and unmoving and yet, Tony thinks, discomfited, it’s plainly clear how every line in the man’s figure is wrought with agony and devastation. He’s a man not just heartbroken but destroyed, completely. 

“That,” Charles says with relish, as Erik takes the pad from his hands, peering at the photograph, “is my great-great-great-great- well, you get the idea- granduncle, bless his soul. He was strangled to death by this soon-to-be serial killer. It’s said that his boyfriend was so devastated by his death that he tore London apart trying to find him, and then beat the fucker to death.”

“How romantic,” Tony muses. Here he is, getting ghosted by half his booty calls. True, he never calls first, but still. “What’s the boyfriend’s name?” 

“It’s weird,” Charles says, and looks up at Erik who’s still scrutinizing the article, an unreadable look in his eyes. “He had a name exactly like Erik’s. Down to the letter, in fact. Erik Lehnsherr.”

“Lehnsherr is a common German surname,” Steve offers, peering from the back of the couch. 

“True,” Charles says, distant as he stares at Erik. Tony doesn’t know what goes on between them, sometimes. You couldn’t get one without the other- the fierce, uncompromising soon to be valedictorian and his flirtatious yet at times cantankerous doctor. He feels weak in their proximity, two supernovas crashing into each other and devouring everyone around them into nothingness. Have mercy on everyone else, Jesus, Tony thinks sullenly.

He’d kill to have Steve look at him the same way Erik looks at Charles- like Charles is the sun around which he orbits. 

“You’ve been quiet, big guy,” Tony tells Erik, to which he scowls. “Hand the pad over.”

Erik hands it over, still scowling. “What had the first Charles been like?” he asks.

“He’d been the sort of guy everyone wanted to be friends with,” Charles says, shutting the pad off. “My dad used to say that the kind of impression you leave when you get shuffled off the mortal coil defines who you used to be as a person.”

He falls silent, and Tony prompts him. “Who did Charles Xavier used to be?’

“Charles Xavier was  _ loved  _ as a person,” Charles says, his eyes on the pad as he absently guides Erik’s head back down to rest on his lap. “But it’s strange- he became a tragedy. A cautionary tale, if you will. What happens when you’re too beautiful, too young, too arrogant in your own mortality, too- happy.” He’s gone distant again, a strange energy taking over him. Charles did that sometimes, with his fingers on whatever lay around his neck for the day as he slipped away to some place no one could follow him to. Tony can always tell how much it rankles at Erik when it happens. Truth be told, it pisses him off too. Charles is his best friend, ever since he’d taken one look at one of Tony’s inventions and tore it apart in seconds with the sort of cruelty Pepper had admired. 

“That’s a morbid take of it,” Tony says, displeased. He’d be furious, he thinks, if he ever died young by accident and became a tragedy everyone refused to talk about, like a fucking taboo subject. His funeral, he likes to think, will be a rager. Laughter and jokes all round, stories about how mighty and handsome and intelligent and sexy he was. “He should be remembered for who he was, rather than what happened to him.”

“Perhaps,” Charles says, fingering the collar around his neck- it’s a collar today, the sort with gothic spikes that gleam in the light. It’s made Erik bump into five different pillars today- both Tony and Steve have been keeping count. “I joke, when I say I’m the copy. I just feel- awful for him.” His eyes shift to the pad again, now dark and dead. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? To die after your time. He wanted to accomplish so much. He wanted to change the world.”

“I don’t know,” Erik says, and his hand clasps Charles’ briefly for a second before letting go. Who were they fooling? Everyone knows they’re fucking like rabbits. “I think it’s rather more painful to be the one left behind.”

9.

_ Captain’s log, stardate 12.06.3014 _

_ First Officer Steve Rogers of the Magneto I, primary ship of the Galactic Fleet, speaking on behalf of Captain Erik Lehnsherr who has been compromised and will be out of commission for two weeks, starting yesterday.  _

_ Right, so- the mission to Krakoa. Going in, all the intel we had was that they were an alien race who had unspoken of powers, that made them vulnerable to threats from enemy alien races like the Gerulians. Approximately… half an hour, it was half an hour later, Lieutenant Braddock commed up to the ship, said that both Captain Lehnsherr and CMO Xavier were- attacked by the Krakoans.  _

_ We did not launch an offensive. Firstly, because the intel did not match with what had just happened- the Krakoans do not believe in violence and they are a pacifist species, so much so that they don’t even have their own defences. They frown upon the Inter-Planetary Fleet of the GF, on the military arm and such. They only requested for First Contact because they’d just suffered an attack by the Gerulians, and did not want to be wiped out.  _

_ *audible sigh* *crackle of feedback* _

_ Secondly, the Captain and the CMO woke up ten minutes after Lieutenant Braddock had just commed up. Although they decided to continue the meeting- waving off  _ my  _ protests, I must add- they were reported to be withdrawn and quiet. The Assistant CMO, Hank McCoy and the other medical ensigns available conducted checkups on them once they were aboard, but there’s nothing physical that’s the issue.  _

_ *crackle of feedback* _

_ I suspect that whatever that’s going on with the Captain and the CMO, and between them, must be- of the mind, rather than the body. We are now on route back to star base II of planet Earth. Perhaps a more thorough checkup might be suitable for them.  _

_ *crackle of feedback* _

_ Who the *bleep* am I kidding? Who even monitors these logs? Admiral Fury, if you’re still reading this, something went down on that planet between the two of them. Something- something unnatural.  _

_ Rogers out.  _

10.

“What did you do to Shaw?”

Erik hadn’t even heard the doors to the ship’s observation deck open. He’d been at the same position for hours, legs folded under him as he stared out at the passing galaxies of stars and balls of gas. He turns to see Charles leaning against the doors of the deck, clad in a turtleneck that he recognises as his own. 

“You still love to steal clothes,” Erik says, slightly amused. He sobers up, turning back in front and hears Charles pad softly across the deck until he’s drawing up a chair as well, sitting beside Erik. “I beat him to death.”

Charles huffs out a breath. “Erik,” he says softly. “I didn’t- killing Shaw was not the answer.”

“How the fuck would you know what the answer was?” Erik snaps. He jumps up, pacing across the floor and refusing to look at Charles. “You left me. No- no, he  _ took  _ you away from me. You were there one day and the next, you were gone. And I couldn’t even- I couldn’t even- I spent a  _ lifetime  _ without you, Charles!” Five years. That was all he’d had with Charles. He remembers every single detail like it was just yesterday- this whole other life, dredged up by the Krakoans and forced into his head for safekeeping. 

Charles is silent. 

“I was in love with you,” Erik croaks. He feels the tears finally escape his eyes. Ever since he’d woken up on that planet, they’d been lodged in his throat like a stubborn piece of wood. Wreckage from a crashed ship. “You were going to propose to me. We had a  _ life  _ together. Don’t you dare tell me I shouldn’t have gotten my-”

“Revenge?” Charles snaps, as if suddenly finding his voice. “Well, fuck you very much, Erik, I hope you got the fucking revenge you wanted.”

“It wasn’t revenge, Charles,” Erik finally says, turning to him. Charles is crying quietly, tears that stream down his face and gather on the collar of his turtleneck. “I wanted you back so much I wanted to kill myself just to be with you.”

“Don’t say that,” Charles gasps, and now he’s openly sobbing. Erik crashes onto his knees in front of him, tugging Charles until he’s collapsed onto his lap, his frame racking with the sobs that seem to bounce off the walls of the empty observation deck. “Erik- don’t f-f-fucking say that.”

“I’m sorry,” Erik murmurs. He feels divided, a man who’s led two lives- Erik Lehnsherr, divorced family man and car mechanic torn up over his lost love for over five decades, and Captain Lehnsherr, head of the best spaceship in the fleet and in love with his chief medical officer. “I’m sorry.”

“I had the restaurant booked,” Charles murmurs in his ear, his throat clogged and choked up. “It was in the corner of the street in Trafalgar Square. I was going to get on one knee, and tell you all about how much I loved you- how much you drive me insane, but how much I want to be by your side anyway. I never wanted to leave. I never wanted to die. I wanted- I wanted to change the world.” He dissolves into fresh sobs, huge wheezing ones that rattle in his chest, that make Erik clutch him tighter and try in vain to swallow his own tears down. 

He never thought he’d have this. He remembers it now- so many years of driving to the beach on his bike, sitting on the sand and imagining Charles with his hand over his. So many years of going to the cemetery, sitting in front of Charles’ grave until his skin turned cold. So many years of his kids and then his grandkids asking him  _ papa, why do you look so sad? Grandpa, why do you look so sad? _

Erik had met his soulmate and then lost him at the fucking young, unmatured, formative age of 25. That grief had changed him completely. 

So much so that the universe had decided to give them a second chance. 

Charles sighs in his ear, sounding young and heartbroken. “I’m terrified,” he whispers. “I feel his hands around my throat every time I close my eyes for even a second.” 

Erik stiffens. “I should have dragged it out,” he snarls. He still remembers punching Shaw like it had been yesterday, beating him raw until he’d felt cartilage and bone break beneath his knuckles, continuing on until nothing of Shaw’s face had been recognisable anymore. 

“I didn’t want- I would have wanted you to move on,” Charles says softly, brushing his lips over Erik’s ear. “I love you, Erik. I’ve always loved you, even when you were my best friend and the captain of the best spaceship in the fleet. I would have wanted you to be happy.”

“And I think you should know I cannot be happy without you,” Erik says equally softly, his own heart aching. “I held your body in my  _ arms.  _ Charles. I saw your bruises, right here.” He tugs the collar of the turtleneck down, watches Charles’ Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. He closes his eyes and just as clear as day, remembers cradling Charles’ cold body in his arms, his eyes clear and sightless and staring up at the sky with his throat coloured a grotesque red-blue-black. 

Maybe it would have been a different matter if Charles had died of an illness, or just in his sleep- a quiet and peaceful death, harmless. But Charles had been  _ murdered.  _ He’d been strangled to death, Shaw’s monstrous hands choking the life out of him, and Erik knows he’d spent the last hours of his life terrified and calling out for Erik to save him only for Erik to never come. How was Erik supposed to move on after that? It’s a reminder of his failure to protect the one he loved most in the world. It’s a reminder that Charles was cruelly, brutally taken away from him. It’s a reminder of how alone he’d become, after the best five years of his life.

“At least we found each other again,” Charles admits meekly. He squirms around on Erik’s lap, turning to sit sideways and stretching his legs out, resting his chin on Erik’s shoulder. “You know, I almost drafted my request for a transfer to another ship. Maybe the  _ Shadowcat.” _

“Why the hell would you?” Erik instantly snaps, mystified.

Charles shrugs. “I thought- I don’t know what I thought,” he sighs. “You and me, we’ve lived two lives. I know you’re in love with the genetics major you met outside a frat party and took to a beach before kissing him silly. But I’m- I’m not entirely him, am I? You’re not entirely that engineering major I met outside that frat party either.”

“No, we’re not,” Erik admits. It’s a bit of a pain, having these memories of a life lived and having different ones. He thinks of his mother with a pang- Edie Lehnsherr, who’d helped him heal from Charles’ death, who’d been there for him all through his life. He thinks of his life now- both parents having died in the third fleet of ships that had defended Earth against the Gerulians, the sole reason he’d even signed on to be a captain for the fleet. He thinks of Charles, who had Raven as his sister, a neglectful mother, abusive stepbrother and stepfather as family in his past life, and he thinks of Charles now- his mother having died in childbirth, his father an absentee admiral who had tried his best to be there for his only child but could never quite succeed. They’re the same people who met in 2014 outside a frat party, but they’re also different.

“I’m in love with both versions of you,” Charles says, his throat choked up. “Are you?”

In response, Erik bears him down on the floor of the observation deck. “Forever,” he whispers against his mouth. “You idiot, Charles, I’ve been in love with you since I looked up to see you ogle my bike. I’ve been in love with you since I looked up to see you vomit on the curb. Any version of you- every version of you- I’ll be gone for him. Heart and soul.”

Charles’ answering smile is beautiful. They make love, for perhaps the first time as themselves, right there on the observation deck. The next morning, Steve informs them he’s taken the express duty of wiping all surveillance footage from the deck between the hours of 3 am and 6 am. 

“I’m happy you two figured it out, though,” he says, clapping Erik on the forearm and ignoring his glare. “It was way past time.”

11.

“What do I think of death? I don’t fucking know, do I?” CMO Dr Charles Xavier of the  _ Magneto I  _ says, irritable. “I thought death was final. I thought fate and destiny were non-existent, fairy tales they told you to make you happy about there being a set path for us. I thought space was abhorrent and I thought love wasn’t for me. And now I’m sitting here, having lived through London in 2014 and Chicago in 3014.”

He stirs his tea- Earl Grey, it’s his usual. “See, i don’t know what any of it fucking means, alright? I was dead and then now I’m not. I had a life in 2014 and now I have another life in 3014. Erik and I had our first chance and whoever is up there- Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Yehwah,  _ whatever _ , I’m a free thinker- decided to give us a second one. Does that mean everyone gets a second chance? Does that mean  _ you _ were somebody too, and you are a different somebody in this world, in the here and now? Does that mean our futures are set? Is it my destiny to find love and then have it taken from me, to live and then to die?”

He lifts a finger, and points it at his neck. It’s a purple ribbon today, thick and with a baroque design. Very pretty, the kind people can’t find just anywhere these days. “I’m the most terrified person in this bar right now,” he says. “I still remember having the life choked out of me. How it felt, getting chased in the woods, lying there with Shaw’s hands wrapped around my neck, knowing I was going to die, I was going to  _ leave  _ Erik. I was Charles the Second, doctor under the Galactic Fleet, and now I’m Dr Xavier too, professor of genetics from Oxford University. I’m two halves of a soul that can’t fit no matter how hard I try.”

“What do I think of death? I don’t know,” he says again, his voice lost and confused. “Erik and I were given a second chance. What does that mean? Move on? I can’t move on from fucking murder. Erik sometimes looks at me like he’s expecting me to drop dead. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror expecting  _ me  _ to drop dead. I was in love with Erik, right, so in love with my captain, and now I’m even more in love with the boy I met outside that frat house and I can’t fucking breathe, it’s intolerable to hold this much love for one person.  _ One person.” _

“Reincarnation,” CMO Dr Charles Xavier snorts, and then takes a sip of his tea, dainty and elegant. He tugs his ribbon over his neck even more firmly, smooths it out to ensure it’s covering most of his neck. “What a big, fucking joke.”

“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” he continues. “I’ve lived my whole life in fear. I’m living my life right now in a fucking- a fucking fear bubble. What’s next? Am I about to die again? Is the universe playing a huge cosmic joke for us all, setting some of us up for greatness and others for never ending loss? I don’t know. But I do know one thing.”

He leans forward. His eyes glimmer. They really are beautiful- otherworldly, space sapphires.

“I got my second chance with Erik.” He leans back, his smile triumphant.  _ “I got my second chance with Erik.” _

12.

It’s a restaurant at the corner of the street in downtown Chicago. It’s cozy, quiet, slightly upper class but Erik will do anything for Charles. The food had been great and now Erik slides off his chair, gets down on one knee and digs around in his pocket while Charles looks on with wide eyes.

The second the  _ Magneto I  _ had touched down in Chicago, Erik had contacted his aunt. His aunt had immediately called him back, explaining that she’d send it over in a week.

“We’ve had it passed down for generations,” she had explained, voice crackly from feedback. “No one’s ever really used it, however. No one until you, that is. Everyone’s always regarded the ring as something cursed.”

The envelope, true to her words, gets sent a week later. Erik opens it to find a single sapphire-encrusted ring, safely kept and somehow still intact after the evolution of ten centuries. 

He takes the box out now, opening it and smiling at the look of recognition in Charles’ eyes, the way his face slowly fills with wonder and hope. “Charles Xavier,” he says, “you drive me absolutely crazy. I loved you in London, and I love you in Chicago. I don’t know if what we have will continue on, or end tomorrow. But I do know that I want to see this ring on your finger like I did all those years ago, and I want to call you my husband. Will you-”

“Yes, you  _ motherfucker _ , yes!” Charles exclaims, as the restaurant bursts into applause. Then he catches the look in Erik’s eyes, and snorts. “I’m sorry, did you want me to let you finish?”

“Come here, you spawn of Satan,” Erik says approvingly, wondrously, as Charles’ eyes spill over with tears and he stumbles into Erik’s arms, letting Erik slide the ring onto his finger as he sobs. It’s a black choker today, designed with little white stars, and Erik presses his mouth over the cloth and breathes, breathes, breathes. 

“Our second chance,” he whispers, and Charles is smiling tearfully, his lips red from it.

They get married in a pavilion in the back of a Vegas hotel.




Erik has his nose tucked into the back of Charles’ neck, one hand under Charles’ head and the other one comfortably splayed out on his stomach. Charles smiles, closing his eyes briefly and listening to the way Erik snuffles in his sleep. It’s cute, the way Erik insists he doesn’t  _ snuffle, Charles, what the fuck is a snuffle? _

The ship is moving soundly, everyone asleep with the night shift crew working at the bridge. For a split second, Charles wonders why he’d woken up.

And then the data pad bleeps again.

“Oh for- fuck  _ off,”  _ Charles says, and the pad bleeps again. “Fuck, fuck- I’m coming, hold onto your damn horses!” He stretches over, grabs the pad and slides to accept the call.

It’s Tony, an excited look on his face.

“Tony,” Charles snaps. “It’s three in the morning, Tony! What is wrong with you?”

“My ex girlfriends can answer that,” Tony says, grinning. “How’s the husband,  _ Lehnsherr?” _

“I'm sitting on his face,” Charles answers promptly. “Tony, for the love of god, why did you wake me up? We’re on the same ship!”

“I know, I know, just- they chose a new Head Admiral! Here he is, Lehnsherr.”

The screen of the pad flickers to the picture of a man. And then the entire world ceases to exist. For a second, all Charles hears is white noise as he looks at the face of the man who’d choked him to death in a forest. 

Tony pops back into the screen again. It doesn’t matter, anyway, as Charles blinks and blinks and sees only the grinning face of Sebastian Shaw, all decked out in the clean uniform of an Admiral. His heart is thundering as he tries to register the fact that he’ll never feel safe again. The skin of his throat has started to throb. “His name is Klaus Schmidt,” Tony says with relish. “Exciting, isn’t it?”

**Author's Note:**

> and then charles got strangled again and erik once again spends the rest of his life grieving his death lmao 
> 
> KIDDING!!! but who knows that happens :P
> 
> a few things!
> 
> a) this story is written in a very different style compared to my other fics, as was the prequel to this. its not something ill write in very often but hope u liked it anyway!  
> b) based on the ending i think all of you would be expecting another sequel to this. i have no idea if a sequel is in the works although i am aware that this ending is unsatisfactory. who knows, maybe ill write a third part if inspiration randomly strikes  
> c) a lot of this is based on elements of star trek. charles and erik in 3014 are based off a certain star trek couple. points to anyone who can figure it out :D 
> 
> thats about it, leave me a comment + kudos if u liked this (or if u want to bug me into writing a third part lol) as always im on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/himbomcavoy) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/ROBBIETURNCR)


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